The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason - Sam Harris (A Critical Review)

Versão em Português aqui

In his critique to the fierce Muslim and Christian fundamentalism, Sam Harris is brilliant! Accurately points out the inconsistencies of a faith that, for instance, believe in acts contrary to nature by Christians (the virgin birth, rising from the dead, "Ascend to heaven in a cloud and promise to come back as a superhero to punish bad people and rewarding good people", etc..) and Muslim (living a life guided by strict sexual chastity and, among the promises of paradise martyrs would be a prize with 72 virgins to any orgies imaginable, among other things). But, above all, faith in a deity who cares personally with each of the over 6 billion inhabitants of the 3rd planet orbiting the Sun thinks, does or fails to do and even takes care of every detail, from the fall of the leaves of a tree through earthquakes, hurricanes, disseminations of viruses and bacteria and coming to care about fashion and cooking, among many other things, from aspects based on the known world over 4,000 years ago, usually by applying not just as literal as yet present an eclectic compilation of many writers in the late Neolithic.

He has chosen not to address the phenomenal inconsistencies of the Judaism, the first broadly known monotheistic religion, with their beliefs no less illogical or irrational than the two that match. The creation of "Greater Israel" - that the Chosen People has right to the Promised Land or that the firstborn People of God takes the enclosed space around the Fertile Crescent, between the Nile and Euphrates rivers must be earned and strength is the method recommended by Moses - embedded in the project Jewish fundamentalists in political power today is not contained in any of the lines in the 388-page book, very useful to combat the irrationality of this new Dark Age we are living in XXI century.

Sam Harris is a true genius when it comes to criticism of Islam and Christianity particularly in its fundamentalist version. Probably has chosen not criticize Judaism with the same verve by a number of reasons (I can only speculate here ...), such as the fact that the Shoah (the Holocaust) happened, and even, according to Norman Finkelstein, "The Holocaust Industry” the number of victims receiving compensation for the German and Swiss governments is increasing numbers but, overall, the Jews were in fact the second most people attacked and persecuted by the Nazis: six million human beings were sacrificed in the Nazi machine, 1 / 3 the amount of Soviets (perhaps 1 / 5 of all considered "communist") who died so that effectively ended that monstrosity. According Finkelstein - who is Jewish! - The Holocaust Industry, generates big dividends rising to the descendants of those who suffered at the hands of the Nazis and, more importantly, tends to make any criticism of the National State of Israel, however justified it may be, for example the occupation of Palestine and its policy expansion of the territory - and never comply with UN decisions - be like anti-Semitism. Perhaps fearing being labeled anti-Semitic Jewish atheist, Harris prefers not to talk about it. Another hypothesis is that critical - highly relevant - which he makes the Old Testament (almost letter by letter The Torah, the Jewish holy book) fulfills this role well: Moses, leading the mythological creator of Judaism, entered in the books he wrote a number of inaccuracies - and several aberrations - which perhaps would fit properly, but the ethical point of view, at least from the standpoint of trying to understand the world in his time – by the end of the Neolithic. Personally I always saw a great inconsistency between the "Thou Shalt Not Kill" of the 6^th Commandment and the order of death by stoning of a particular type of crime or total destruction of cities and genocide of entire peoples who, unfortunately, lived in the land promised to the Chosen People. Another detail is that outside the Torah or Old Testament, there is no historical record (among Egyptians, Phoenicians, Hittites, Babylonians and Greeks) about a large mass of slaves escaping from Egypt towards the Promised Land. And in Noah's ark? Did it have mico-leão-dourado, kangaroo, penguin, polar bear ...

It is a must in the study of the latest move similar to religion, which begins in mid-twentieth century and expands like an uncontrollable cancer causing millions of victims worldwide while concentrates income (based on the work of all) in idle hands. It is a "world upside down," as my good friend Uruguayan Eduardo Galeano uses to say: rewards scams, speculation, gambling and corruption while violently punishes labor honored work. The Market Fundamentalism, with its temples (banks, stock exchanges and similar spaces), priests (who are known as "economists" even though they are exercising a different function than the economy as a science, advocates), dogmas (not state intervention in economy, privatization and health care, education and security, there is no economic alternative except the famous "invisible hand" of the market ...) and heresies (the defense of human life at the expense of capital, nationalization of essential public services and economic planning worthy of the name).

There is extensive literature on the subject, particularly by great authorities in the subject such as Noam Chomsky, Eduardo Galeano, Ignacio Ramonet, Slavoj Zizek and many other rationalists, humanists and connoisseurs of Political Science, but I would especially indicate the definitive documentary on the subject, "Voces Contra La Globalización", broadcasted by TVE - Spain. I reproduce them on my Youtube page here: http://culturabrasil.org/vozescontra.htm Sam Harris as a researcher who is honest, will agree that the Market  Religion makes more victims and is vastly more dangerous than the older religions - that also deserve criticism for the level of disinformation is exasperating in the era of communication.

If we agree that the measure of ethics is in love or empathy for other human beings, market fundamentalism is the least ethical of all religions and that more victims have been doing around the world since its rise in the second half of last century and in rhythm is still rapidly growing until this day. Tackling market fundamentalism is perhaps more emergencial than to combat the older religions.

If every householder or housewife organize their finances according to the blind laws of the market (which unfortunately happens in many cases and those who do suffer severe consequences) there would be no family able to keep steady - this happens in many regions of world, but is subject to another essay. Plan the economy of a country involves fundamentally rational measure that the people who live in this country need to be happy and provide conditions for achieving this goal. The market is not the answer, it is lapidary clear throughout the globalized world. In the documentary that aired on TVE - Spanish - "Voices Against Globalization" some of the most renowned philosophers, economists, sociologists, political scientists, writers and activists expose the evils for all human beings in the world (the real owners and controllers of the world) of a routing so irrational resource - limited by definition - of Planet Earth.

In a spectacular stretch of that documentary, Jose Saramago says that politicians could be honest and say something like "Dear fellow citizens, we have no power;  we are mere commissioners at the behest of the interests of capital markets" - which is what in fact occurs

This modern religion that is forming in alliance with Protestant fundamentalism (as well as in Max Weber explains in detail in "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism") deserves from us, rationalists, fight even more forceful and urgent that others have irrationalism deserved.

Sam Harris accepted, with an amazing ease and uncritical for a person so well informed, all the prejudices embedded in advertisements, news reports and officials reports of his country. This is embarrassing! He should know better…

I followed with great attention the documentary "911: In Plane Site" by David vonKleist (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0454587/) "Fahrenheit 9 / 11" by Michael Moore (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0361596/); Loose Change 9 / 11: An American Coup by Dylan Avery (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1394268/), One Nation Under Siege, by William Lewis (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1566934/) 9 / 11: Press for Truth, by Ray Nowosielski (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0867134/). Those things rise at least a doubt regarding the official view of what and why those tragedies really happened. Reading, among other books, articles, reports, web sites: National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/index.htm) Architects and Engineers for 9 / 11 Truth - (http://www.ae911truth.org/), The American Truth, by Nick Shelton… And on Wikipedia in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_Truth_movement we find thousands of references to a wide suspicion that what happened on that fateful day was what the Americans call "Inside Job", in short, more or less what got Hitler in Germany by ordering the incineration of the Bundestag, a justification to kill and persecute his political enemies – in the U.S. case, this was added to the greed for profit and access to oil sources.

At a minimum, to accept uncritically the government's propaganda of the fundamentalist evangelical George W. Bush saying that the perpetrators were Muslim fundamentalists in Afghanistan (until a few short years before financed by Washington that helped the Taliban in their fight against the then USSR) is neither rational nor scientific. It is leap of faith in government propaganda. And Sam Harris, unfortunately, have this faith - by definition blind – makes that leap of faith believing blindly  that Muslim fundamentalists were responsible for the four attacks of September 11, 2001: World Trade Center, Pentagon and one that would have been restrained by the passengers of Flight 93 American Airlines (which, according to other sources, landed safely in Ohio that very morning) despite the fact that, at the site where the allegedly has fallen, there were no traces or remains of airplane or humans ...

There are so many people in serious doubt as to what's really behind those attacks that at least we must be careful not to accept – in a leap of faith – merely in what the political propaganda that tells us ...

Sam Harris, when enters the political discourse – preaching a benevolent dictatorship over people he claims are behind time, as Muslims, comparing them to the Christians of the Middle Ages - has the misfortune to issue a Value Judgment highly debatable. Is Western Civilization morally superior and therefore would not only have the right but also the duty to make war (even causing more civilian casualties than military, as always occurs and is euphemistically called collateral damage) and impose the benevolent dictators over people behind time? Passing over the obvious dichotomy between the words "dictator" and "benevolent," everyone knows that the U.S. has been practicing this proposal for decades, washing the world with human blood in what Noam Chomsky calls "Bombing People Into Democracy ". Herbert Marcuse called that procedure Warfare State, with a pun in English Welfare State. Vietnam, Iran, and all Latin American countries have been victimized by this kind of ideology for a long time. Enough ... The "benevolent" dictators supported by Washington (when Washington was the real seat of power, which today is clearly on Wall Street) responded for candid names Shah Reza Pahlevi, General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, General Ernesto Geisel and other non-minor "ethical superiority "who relied on the services of CIA agents, as Mr. John Foster Dulles - the main architect of Hitler in a frustrated attempt to save the entire Nazi command on the eve of the end of World War II - to teach techniques of extracting confessions along the lines of Holy Spanish Inquisition.

Sorry, Sam Harris, this has been attempted in the world, the idea is not even original, Socrates has defended the Spartans against the Athenians preaching the government by "the one who knows" and, the socratic delirium rely on a “benevolent dictatorship... The Athenians preferred conception of democracy, Socrates refused to recant and preferred to be the martyr for a cause that has been doing successfully for at least 2,600 years, as detailed reported on the exquisite Work by Isidore F. Stone, "The Trial of Socrates”.

The world is lavish with examples of tragedies perpetrated by civilizations endowed with military superiority and a very low moral level - although sincerely affirming and believing the opposite - that shatter genocidal civilizations so clearly superior in terms of ethics but without the same expertise on military technology: from the Aztecs to the Sudanese, through the Tupinambás, Incas and Comanches and reaching the Palestinians, endangered species under the massacre perpetrated by the National State of Israel.

There are excellent studies documenting this process of extermination, highlighting where the National State of Israel perhaps benevolently searching its solution to the Palestinian problem ... I would recommend, for example, the documentary "Occupation 101", by Abdallah and Sufyan Omeish (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0807956/), "Palestine Is Still the Issue" by Tony Stark and John Pilger (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0383551/) the books "The Holocaust Industry - Reflections On The Exploitation Of Jewish Sufferin” and "Image And Reality Of The Israel-Palestine Conflict" by Norman Finkelstein, “Pirates and Emperors - Ancient and Modern”, by Noam Chomsky. Seeing as the National State of Israel - which raises the banner of ethics in the Western Middle East - behaves in relation to people living within its borders (despite the constant condemnations of the UN, Israel has never recognized a Palestinian State, the people who lived there many centuries before the israelians come back from the Diaspora. As the official history - in which Sam Harris seems to believe more than the facts, in a leap of faith again, embarrassing for a person so wise and educated - distorts the facts and modern propaganda only makes flaunting the moments when the oppressed Palestinians, rightly or wrongly, are able to draft a comparatively timid reaction, omitting all details of the brutal Israeli occupation, is essential to seek these sources so that we can somehow get closer to truth.

Furthermore, particularly after Mr. Gandhi proved in practice the moral superiority of the behind time India on the very advanced British Empire, becomes even more difficult to defend this kind of positioning. I do not agree that any dictatorship is worthy of our consideration, after 2600 years of ideologies in this direction we should have learned something ...

I live in Brazil, which has being a Portuguese colony, then a semi-colony of England in 1822 and since the end of World War I became a semi-colony of the United States, a kind of compensation from the British for the American participation in that war and ideologically grounded in the Monroe Doctrine which, regardless the discourse, is still in force (all) America for Americans (U.S.). My country was never in fact independent, each puppet who takes office their first act is to pay tribute to the leaders of the Metropole (it was once to the presidents in the U.S. Nowadays consulting the "market" for the appointment of the President of our Central Bank, instance in fact executor of the measures of market interest against the interests (and the general happiness) of the Brazilian people. Country in which one man (Mr. Eike Batista) profits per day more money with their cunning moves than that all workers get together in Brazil for years!

My worldview, therefore may be affected by living in the most unequal country in the world. With the succession of earthquakes in Japan the Brazilian government celebrates (?!?!) it's rise to seventh position in the ranking of world economy. There are a lot of wealth in Brazil, in fact, worth in possession of less than 5% of the population... The Dictatorship of the Market - this business that today is called "democracy" or "neoliberalism" is not owing anything to Military Dictatorships planted here by the U.S. and embody, empirically prove the moral inferiority of American society to enforce under fire and sword if necessary its will to all peoples of the world.

In “Letter to a Christian Nation”, Sam Harris seems more mature in a work almost no repairs.

There are other minor inaccuracies, forgivable because they do not strike at the heart of the message that Harris conveys, one example: the misconception in the Brazilian Portuguese version of “The End of Faith” appears on page 219 "St. Augustine, about the virgin raped by the Goths ..." Well, most Augustine's concern was rather with the Vandals, who occupied all of North Africa from 429 to 486 of our era, not with the Goths in Gaul and elsewhere in Europe ...

I am totally with Sam Harris in his defense of rationalism against superstitions and the oldest religions. Irreproachable in this respect. But I feel the lack of criticism towards the Jewish Fundamentalism, the Market Fundamentalism and totally disagree with his political analysis and diagnosis.

Lazaro Curvêlo Chaves - April 15, 2011